1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image selection support apparatus, an image selection support method and an image selection support system including an image selection support program, and in particular, to an image selection support apparatus, an image selection support method and an image selection support system including an image selection support program which support selection of a well-photographed image of a person from plural images.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, digital images photographed by a user by using a digital camera or the like are input to a personal computer (PC), and are stored therein.
At this time, because the photographed digital images are accumulated one after another in the PC, arranging the images is becoming more troublesome for the ordinary user.
On the other hand, for the ordinary user, there are needs such as the desire to pick up a well-photographed image from these digital images accumulated in the PC, and paste it in a New Year's card or make an albums of respective themes.
In this case, it is possible to create a final work by using commercially available software. However, the work of selecting a well-photographed image from a large number of images is particularly hard.
This work is carried out by using display software for browsing images. Two display methods have been conventionally provided as the form of the display form.
One of the display methods is a method by thumbnail (reduction) display as shown in FIG. 10A.
By using this thumbnail (reduction) display method, there is the merit that plural images can be seen at the same time.
The second display method is a method in which an enlarged image is displayed by a full-screen display as shown in FIG. 10B by selecting and clicking on such a thumbnail image with a mouse.
Generally, the user executes image sorting work by using the two types of images.
Further, in both display methods, a photograph taken longitudinally is displayed as an image turned laterally (rotated by 90°).
Of course, although a means for rotating the image by 90° to make it upright is provided, this process must be carried out on the images one-by-one.
However, with thumbnail (reduction) displayed images as described above, although the user can distinguish the basic composition and the like of the image, because the resolution is low, objects such as a person cannot be observed in detail.
Thus, the user needs to enlarge the reduced image in order to observe the object in detail.
This work has to be carried out on the images one-by-one in order by the user.
In particular, in the case of an upright full-length figure image or the like, because the face area is small, the user has to observe the face area by enlarging the full-length figure image to be full-screen. However, if plural images are open on the screen, the working efficiency is poor because the images are superposed on each other.
Moreover, in this process, when the user intends to narrow several similar images down to only well-photographed images, the user has to display a plurality of similar images as large images, and to compare the objects while moving the objects to the front and the back on the displayed screen.
Further, in all of the image browsing software currently presented, when the facial expression or the like of a person is observed, there is the problem that a photograph taken longitudinally is displayed as an image turned laterally (rotated by 90°).
Of course, in the entire image browsing software, longitudinal/lateral switching can be carried out for such images. However, it is not efficient for the user to carry out switching image-by-image.
In order to solve this problem, it is proposed, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-173984, that longitudinal/lateral switching is applied to an image on the basis of top/bottom information obtained by mounting a top/bottom sensor to a digital camera, and the image is displayed as an upright image.
However, this method cannot handle the case in which an image is photographed by a digital camera without top/bottom information.